How to Overcome Fear After Psychological Narcissistic Abuse

Understanding how to overcome fear is a crucial part of narcissistic abuse recovery.

As you wander out into the world free from the narcissist’s chains, you might feel, well, off.

You probably find yourself second-guessing every decision you make. Maybe you’ve noticed your behavior is more impulsive than you remember.

This is normal.

Why?

Narcissistic abuse – especially long-term abuse – rewires vital areas of the brain. You were living in a state of fight-or-flight during your abuse. Now, the threat is gone but your brain has been programmed to live in fear as its baseline state.

Here’s what’s going on in your head and how to heal.

Narcissistic Abuse Inflicts Long-Term Trauma Leading to PTSD

You’re probably already familiar with the link between emotional abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder. Emotional and verbal abuse can produce psychological consequences just as devastating as one-off violent events.

When you survive a terrorist attack or car accident, however, it’s easy to identify the incident as a one-off traumatic event. Healing and coping with the aftermath are certainly not easy – but it’s obvious that you were exposed to trauma.

It’s not a one-off event. In fact, narcissistic trauma creeps in very slowly and can occur over many months, years, or even decades.

At first, you might think it’s just a cute quirk that your partner gets sad when you spend too much time with your friends. Next, you might get annoyed when they want you to check-in with them every ten minutes. Until finally, they demand to go through your phone every night and question you about each and every benign message, Facebook like, and comment.

Before you know it, the controlling, manipulative, and abusive behavior has become normal.

But it’s NOT normal and your brain knows this – even if you can’t consciously admit it. As a result, your brain rewires itself to survive in this state of chronic trauma and fear.

That’s why it’s important to understand how to overcome fear in your quest to heal from narcissistic abuse.

How Narcissistic Abuse Rewires the Brain

You may not realize it, but you’ve been living in a constant state of fear.

You worry about how the narcissist will react and respond to everything you say and do. This creates an extremely high-stress environment which produces significant changes in the brain.

For starters, exposure to stress causes your cortisol levels to rise. Over time, high levels of cortisol can lead to weight gain, acne, slow wound healing, muscle weakness, and a broad range of other physical symptoms.

Chronic exposure to cortisol can also shrink the hippocampus: the part of your brain responsible for processing and storing short-term memory. Researchers from the University of New Orleans and Stanford University noticed that subjects with the highest levels of cortisol and PTSD symptoms had the smallest hippocampi.

The cognitive dissonance, confusion, and memory loss you experienced during your narcissistic abuse was no coincidence – your brain just adapted to the chronic fear and stress.

Are You Addicted to Trauma?

When you consume a drug, like an opiate for example, your brain gets used to receiving dopamine and stops producing the chemical on its own.

Believe it or not, you can become “hooked” on damaging hormones like cortisol as well.

Over time, your brain gets used to the flood of cortisol, adrenaline, and other stress hormones you receive from trauma. As a result, your brain starts to believe that this is normal, and you literally become addicted to the trauma itself to obtain these hormones.

That’s why it’s so difficult to leave narcissistic abuse: the narcissist gets their ego fix from degrading you and your brain receives its fix of cortisol and adrenaline from the constant fight-or-flight environment.

How Narcissism Hijacks the Amygdala

Once you finally leave the chronic trauma of narcissistic abuse, it’s natural to beat yourself up.

How could you let this go on so long?

How did you not see how toxic and messed up the situation was?

Don’t be hard on yourself, because it’s not your fault. After months or years of chronic abuse, your brain and body adapted to this constant state of fight-or-flight – it felt normal to you. Maybe you started to believe that this is just how relationships work whether it be family, romantic partners, or coworkers.

The truth is, narcissistic abuse hijacks your amygdala. This is the part of your brain responsible for regulating basic functions – like breathing and heart rate, as well as primal emotions. This is your impulsive “reptilian brain” that tells you when to feel anger, fear, love, lust, and hate.

If the other parts of your brain didn’t run smoothly and keep the amygdala in check, people would behave like animals.

But the amygdala has another important task: it regulates your fight-or-flight response.

As a victim of narcissistic abuse, you constantly lived in this state of fear. You were constantly responding to abuse and trauma. Since your hippocampus has shrunk and isn’t functioning properly, you can’t respond to external stressors constructively.

It’s a vicious cycle that keeps you locked in for the long-haul.

You’ve been living in constant fear for a long time – that’s why it’s so important that you understand how to finally overcome the fear.

What Do the Effects Look Like?

Identifying the symptoms is extremely difficult when you’re in the throes of narcissistic abuse because you will do anything to justify your situation as normal due to the addiction you’ve developed. Also, the symptoms look different depending on whether you’re still experiencing the trauma or trying to move on with your life.

While you’re suffering from abuse, symptoms might include the following:

Denial: Making excuses and believing your toxic relationship is normal.

Compartmentalizing: Brushing the abuse aside and focusing on the elusive “good times.”

Projecting: Imagining the narcissist has positive qualities that you possess yourself.

Once you’re out on your own, figuring out how to overcome fear, you might notice symptoms crop up at unexpected times:

Responding to people’s questions defensively

Behaving irrationally or impulsively

Over-apologizing

Paranoia and feeling like everyone is watching your every move

Feeling depressed, lost, or without a purpose

These feelings are very standard. You’re going through exactly what so many other survivors of narcissistic abuse have gone through. The narcissist controlled you for a long time, and you need to allow yourself time to truly heal from both the physical and mental trauma.

How to Overcome Fear from Psychological Narcissistic Abuse

Healing from the psychological damage from a narcissist takes plenty of time and dedication. And, you may still experience some symptoms years down the road when people, places, and things trigger memories of the trauma and abuse.

The good news is that you’ll be stronger than before, and you’ll have the ability to spot narcissistic traits before another abuser weasels their way into your life.

In order to truly heal yourself from narcissistic abuse, you need to understand how to overcome fear and develop some tactics and coping tools:

Meditation: According to research from Harvard, eight weeks of mindfulness meditation can rewire the brain to encourage empathy, resilience to stress, better memory, and a sense-of-self.

Therapy: Group or one-on-one therapy can help provide you with a fresh third-party perspective. This is something you desperately need after years of narcissistic abuse warping your perception of yourself and the world around you. Just be sure to find someone who is familiar with emotional abuse and trauma.

Support: If your friends have good relationships with the narcissist, they can’t provide you the support you need. These are relationships which must be severed. You’re better off leaning on friends who will validate your feelings and won’t blame you for any of the abuse you experienced. Support groups are also a great idea if you can find any in your area. However, be aware that local Meetup groups may not be the best route as many times, they feature people who masquerade as healers when they’re really narcissists out to exploit you.

Generosity: Helping someone is a tremendous way to get yourself outside and develop a fresh, yet realistic perspective of your place in the world. This can be something as big as volunteering at a charitable organization on the weekends to helping your mom or dad around the house.

Gratitude: Addicts in recovery are always encouraged to identify things they’re grateful for on a daily basis. Focus on the positive aspects in your life now that the narcissist prohibited you from experiencing in the past, such as basic privacy and relationships with others. What do you love most about your new-found freedom today?

Keep a Journal: You don’t need to log every moment of every day – but when something knocks you off your base, write it down. This will help you notice trigger patterns and areas you can work on.

Self-Care: This sounds pretty basic but in reality, it’s anything but that. You spent so long giving your whole life and identity to the narcissist – it’s time to make time for yourself. Do something the narcissist always said you couldn’t do!

Set Yourself Free from the Patterns of Narcissistic Abuse and Fear!

The key is to develop a personalized healing plan that works for you which helps you develop your relaxation response and learn to self-soothe. Everyone suffers from PTSD differently, so your treatment needs to create an environment where your mental health can flourish.

Finally Break the Narcissistic Spell

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9 comments

xyreneah says February 14, 2019

ive been in a life of lies cycle/narcicssistic world the past 17 years of my life. as what i am now, i am totally destroyed and lose evrything coz of him. im a singer in a band ive been travelling around asia since year 2000 until january 2013 and i have nothings left even my voice to speak, my children has taken away from me. all i see is he has to always have incontrol and the power over me. his way or no way at all. ive been through all kinds/ types of painful and so hurtful behaviour with him. learned to manage deppression, post narc stress disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, to stop my perfect lover illussion just to be okay and happy to get through the next day after i learn what and who they really are and what is really going on. i am not sure what has god plan for me but i am on my way to make things right, get evrything back, be true to myself and go back to what i am. it is never easy to heal its never easy to start back to zero and chose the hardest decision. were married and have 2 children. to those who suffered/ still there suffering with these type of toxic individual. all i can say is be strong, you need an extra ordinary bravery to get out of this. you have to fight for yourself and save your children if you have children, its a hard choice but its never too late to make things right. they will never stop behaving that way, they will never change. they are who they are in their head and you have nothing to do with that. all you can do is to save yourself and the children to get get out of their delusional world/ life of lies/ illussions. also be careful with the trap, trap is evrywhere, they will always use all their advantages to get you back 🙂 i call it “exhale hoovs hoovs” because after you say no like a boss they will become so lovely and a only perfect one for you that ready to die and give the whole world to you just to let him back after they feel you are back to their world again.. evrything is all the same so evrytime he tries to put up a trap i remind myself to “exhale xy, its hoovs hoovs” lol and ofcourse i wanted to say thank you so much to miss kim for all the help i just hope she knows how she made me strong. 🙂 lots of love.. xyreneah here.. from phillipines 🙂

How does one free oneself from toxic abuse,when other parties can speak to each other using mental telepathy where one party seems to be in the others body abusing her physically with pain , because she is an imperfect person and needs to completely take over her life and judges her every move he even knows I’m writing this email too you, he is constantly Here knowing every move I make I might even be abused for writing this!

Sincerely thank you Kim, Your emails help me tremendously, I’m so grateful for your kindness, understanding/empathy and highly educated informative guidence. I’m also genuinely sorry that you had to experience your own trauma from a toxic relationship with a narcissist. Words don’t even cut it but I know I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, not even the narcissist themselves. Thank you Kim & I look forward to my next session tomorrow night. Kindest regards Renee

Thank you again Kim for your spot-on, EXCELLENT support! I hope it is ok to list you as a source in my book that I am writing, which will be out this year. You are helping thousands of us ‘survivors’. Bless you sweetheart!!!!!!